James Braid: creator of Scotland's best golf courses

HE won the British Open golf championship an astonishing five times, but is more famous for being one of Scotland's best golf course creators.

James Braid is described as being 'the shining example of the difference between the golfer and the hitter of golf balls'.

On the official James Braid Society website, it states: "Because an individual owns some golf clubs and a few golf balls and take them on to a golf course to put one to the other in the generally accepted fashion, does not make that person by definition, a golfer."

He was born in the village of Earlsferry in the East Neuk of Fife.

The website adds: "[He] knew as well as any the value of golf for its ability to bring together like-minded souls from every walk of life in friendship and honest competition to the greater betterment of all."

Gleneagles, Carnoustie, Royal Musselburgh are the names which are associated with the course architecture of James Braid.

Each year hundreds of thousands of golfers enjoy courses, which have been designed or re-modelled by Braid - a fact, the society says, is unknown to the majority.

There are over 200 courses, some well known, but many in remote villages, associated to Baird.

It was after a round at Brora, in the Highlands of Scotland and 15 miles north of Dornoch, that historic golfer Peter Thomson expressed the view that a society dedicated to the memory of James Braid was long overdue. The idea quickly germinated and grew into the James Braid Golfing Society.

Thomson is also a five-time Open Champion and celebrated golf course architect.

The website adds: "The James Braid Golfing Society exists not to try to save wayward golfing souls or bring the forces of reaction to bear on what some see as the threat of deteriorating standards.

"What it does seek to do is preserve the values and dignity that James Braid himself brought to this noble game in the eighty years of his life, and by so doing, at least attempts to give a lead by example.

"The James Braid Golfing Society exists to honour more than the legacy of his wonderful imagination that created so many fine golf courses to be enjoyed for generations to come, or his record of five Open Championships wins in the space of a decade that made him the finest player of his day.

"Or even his wisdom and patient advocacy of moderation as a Founder and later President of the PGA. Braid's contribution to the game was more even than that.

"This unassuming son of the village of Earlsferry in the East Neuk of Fife knew as well as any the value of golf for its ability to bring together like-minded souls from every walk of life in friendship and honest competition to the greater betterment of all.

"His tweed cap, Norfolk jacket, always worn with collar and tie, were symbols of a greater dignity.

He was also founder and president of the PGA as well as five-time Open Winner These were won:1901 - Muirfield1905 - St. Andrews1906 - Muirfield1908 - Prestwick1910 - St. Andrews